Our train arrived on time at Haiphong Station in the early evening on Tuesday 17 July. The hard wooden seats had been pretty uncomfortable, so we were glad to be able to walk around again. We had been put in contact with a guy named Duy (pronounced Zwee) who is a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend back in Cape Town. He is an English teacher and pastor and he was kind enough to meet us at the station. He helped us get a taxi to a hostel and then then, once we'd shower...

We were a little concerned when we realised that we would be flying in an old-school propeller plane... neither of us had had the pleasure before and the engines didn't look very big. We were pleasantly surprised by Laos Airlines though - everything was shiny and clean and, even though it was just a one hour flight, we even got a snack after take-off :-) We landed in Hanoi late in the afternoon on Saturday 14 August. Even though we had applied for our Vietnames...